


Soul Mates Don't Exist

by TheBritishGovernment



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Kinda an AU but not really, M/M, Post-Skyfall, Soul Mate AU, more of a slight twisting of the normal world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-10
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBritishGovernment/pseuds/TheBritishGovernment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Soul mates are a fantasy created by people desperate for love,” Q responded flatly.</p>
<p>“Your hearts literally beat in unison,” Tanner countered quickly. The same argument had been made a million times. “You live in a world where people bond to one another, where breathing matches, you can feel Bond’s emotions inside of you and you know where he is without any tracking equipment, not that that has stopped you from embracing GPS.”</p>
<p>
  <b>Complete</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Did You Miss Me?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome.

On a Tuesday morning, Q-branch was not the place to be.

This particular Tuesday morning, Q had gotten word of a supposed information leak. He'd managed to push the actual investigation onto R and whoever she employed, but he still had M and Tanner breathing down his neck about expediting the process, as well as a few impatient messages from the head of Intel sitting on his desk, still unread. The last time he'd spoken to her, she'd told him she didn't have time for children, and Q had the completely unprofessional desire to tell her, in no uncertain terms, that it was really not his problem. She was the head of Intelligence, for God's sake! Surely she had her own people working on the case so that he didn’t have to sacrifice his minions.

And that still wasn't taking into account the fact that Q still needed to debrief and arm three agents waiting to be shipped off to Beijing, Rio De Janeiro, and Cairo, as well as berate two more agents when they returned from their respective missions without their equipment. On top of all of that, there was the agent who had been MIA for a week.

All of that summed up to mean that Q was out of patience. Even those who were technically his superiors stayed out of his office, after one girl left there crying from the tongue lashing Q had given her. And that, of course, was the precise time that James Bond, being the psychic that he was, decided to make himself a fixture in Q-branch.

Q didn’t even notice the door had opened until he smelled the familiar scent of a particularly nice, expensive cologne. His eyes snapped up, settling on James' with a small frown.

“Hello, Q.” James' voice was practically a purr, and as always, Q had to fight the urge to react to the sheer power behind his voice and the swelling in his chest.

“Hello, James,” he said smoothly, letting his eyes fall back to the screen in front of him as he resumed his typing.

“Did you miss me?”

“Even if I had the time to miss you, 007, I wouldn’t. You never bring back my equipment, and you harass my techs. You didn't actually bring anything back this time either, did you?” The question was more a formality than anything else. In the three years that Q had been Quartermaster, James had brought back his equipment, intact, a grand total of four times.

“If you're going to be rude, I'll just leave,” the agent said, feigning offense and pivoting himself away from Q’s desk.

“Alive and in one piece then?” Q asked, his voice sounding almost impressed. /Almost/. He didn’t need to blow up James’s ego anymore than it already was.

“I’ll heal.” James' smirk was almost audible.

“I was talking about the equipment,” Q said flatly, extending his hand for the weapon.

“No you weren’t.” Bond winked before giving Q a Rubik's cube, placing it almost tenderly in the palm of his had.

Q looked down at the item. “I don’t have time for games today, James. What the hell is this?”

“It’s your equipment,” James said with a completely straight face, although it was evident that he was deriving great pleasure from the situation.

Q groaned. “You put your equipment inside a Rubik’s cube. Damn it, James. So, only the radio, then? Or is in the earwig? Never mind.” He sighed. “Will it only open if I solve it?”

“Something like that,” James agree.

Q looked at the block for a moment, contemplating his options and what exactly James’s endgame could be. “I could just saw it in half,” he suggested after a minute.

“Not if you don’t want it to explode in your face,” James countered quickly.

“Sending explosives to your Quartermaster? Tsk, tsk, James. I could rap your knuckles for that.” Q set the cube down on his desk, eying it suspiciously before returning to his work.

James, of course, didn’t move. Q knew he wouldn’t for a while; he almost always stayed in Q-Branch a few hours longer than necessary. Not that anyone there really minded. His presence tended to have a calming effect on Q and a calm Q was a good thing for everyone.

Q paused for a moment when he heard something drip onto the floor. He looked back up, his eyes immediately searching James' body for injury. They settled on his hand, which had blood dripping from it onto the floor. “James, have you even been to Medical?”

“If I went to Medical over every little scrape like this I’d never leave,” James answered dryly, bringing his hand up examine the blood for a moment before letting it drop back to his side.

“Go to Medical, James,” Q said, sounding far more concerned than he should have.

“Why are you so worried? Do you not like your pets being broken?”

“I just don’t like having blood on my floors,” Q retorted. “Now go to Medical.”

“Is that an order?” James had a running bet with Q' minions. They didn't believe that the agent could get Q to pull rank every single time James came in. James, of course, disagreed.

“Yes,” Q said firmly, narrowing his eyes and challenging James to refuse him.

“Alright, Quartermaster, have fun with your puzzle,” James said before leaving the room as Q and every one of the minions in Q-Branch watched him go.

* * *

Tanner loosened his tie and threw his jacket over the back of one of Q’s chairs. He kicked the door shut behind him and audibly sighed. Q grabbed two glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the bottom drawer of his desk, the clinking of the glass loud in the silence of the room. Tanner hit the desk chair harder than he had meant to, making it rock slightly before he settled. Q handed him a glass of whiskey and they both drained their first glasses before even speaking a word to each other.

Q poured each of them another glass, which they both sipped instead of downing them like the first. “That bad, huh?” Q finally asked.

“Seriously, 007 showed up again after a week of being MIA and refused under any circumstances to come out of Medical till he was stitched up. Bloody ridiculous. I have seen that man report to M with his guts practically spilling on the carpet, but a gash in his arm and the world ends,” Tanner ranted slightly before taking another sip of his drink.

“Oh, I know. James decided to visit me today, and instead of just giving me back my equipment like a sane human being he locked it inside of Rubik’s cube,” Q equally ranting.

“Can’t you just saw it open?” Tanner asked.

“I could if he hadn’t rigged explosives and God knows what else to go off if it isn’t unlocked just right,” Q rolled his eyes dramatically before taking another drink.

“You two are ridiculous,” Tanner said with a deep sigh while he shook his head and rolled his eyes.

“What?” Q asked defensively.

“It’s almost disgusting how in love you two are,” Tanner said like it was as basic as the earth going around the sun.

“I’m not in love with anyone, Tanner. We’ve had this discussion,” Q said. Tanner knew that they had had the discussion before and exactly where it was headed.

“I’ll try not to bring up your soul mate again,” Tanner said flatly, watching Q’s eyes darken as he glared at him.

“Did the leak in information get cleared up?” Q asked, quickly changing the subject. None of his hackers had found anything that indicated an information leak other than the creation of digital duplicates, which had caused the initial search for a leak, but Q knew that he was going to check himself anyway.

“According to the interrogations and what your team pulled up there wasn’t one,” Tanner said with a sigh.

“That doesn’t explain the history of the duplications made and transferred somewhere we can’t find,” Q said.

“You think I don’t know that?” Tanner snapped, no doubt having heard the same thing a million times that day. Tanner was quiet for a moment, he wasn’t really the type to snap at people, Q didn’t take it personally so he sat quietly waiting for Tanner to continue. “We’ll have to wait this one out, wait for someone to make their move.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, sipping their drinks and lounging in the desk chairs. Q’s phone buzzed with a text message from Moneypenny.

“Hm?” Tanner asked after Q sent off a quick reply.

“Moneypenny and James are having drinks and asked me if I wanted to join them.”

Tanner snorted despite himself but didn’t even try and pass it off as something else once it came out.

Q glared at him again, arching an eyebrow.

“You are so in love with him, it’s embarrassing,” Tanner said, extending his arm for more whiskey.

“I’m in love with him because I call him James?” Q asked. “It is his name, Tanner, your argument seems a little flawed.”

“You’re in love with him because you’re-“

“Don’t say it,” Q tried to interrupt.

“-soul mates,” Tanner finished without hesitation.

“Soul mates are a fantasy created by people desperate for love,” Q responded flatly.

“Your hearts literally beat in unison,” Tanner countered quickly. The same argument had been made a million times. “You live in a world where people bond to one another, where breathing matches, you can feel Bond’s emotions inside of you and you know where he is without any tracking equipment, not that that has stopped you from embracing GPS.”

“And how would you know any of that?” Q asked topping off his own glass.

“Because it’s the same thing for my wife and I,” Tanner said with a shrug.

“I’m not having this conversation with you again,” Q dismissed.

“Yes you are,” Tanner hummed before draining his glass again and setting it on the edge of Q’s desk. “And since I’m not in denial about my soul mate, I’m going home to her. I’ll see you tomorrow, Q.” Tanner stood up, grabbing his coat from the chair and left the room. Q glared at the door as it shut behind Tanner, leaving Q with a warm feeling in his stomach from more than just the whiskey.

* * *

That warm happy sensation that Q was feeling happened to be coming from a very relaxed James Bond who was sitting in a bar next to Moneypenny.

“Why’d you go to medical today if you’re so tough?” Moneypenny asked with a smirk.

“Q doesn’t like blood on his floors,” James said his eyes running up and down girls leaning against the bar.

Moneypenny snorted quietly and rolled her eyes when James gave her a questioning look before looking back at the women at the bar. One of the women with bleach blonde hair saw Bond’s stare and gave him a bit of a come-and-get-me grin. She was pretty but James only turned away and looked back at his glass then Moneypenny who was shaking with quiet laughter.

“Getting to old for the chase?” Moneypenny teased.

“Not really my type,” Bond said offhandedly.

“Your right, none of them are male, have black curly hair, one letter names, or are your soul mate,” Moneypenny said with a triumphant grin.

“Stop day dreaming, soul mates don’t exist,” James said before taking another drink and giving Moneypenny a triumphant grin that made her grin turn to a scowl.

“Do you deny that your hearts beat in unison?” she asked.

“There are only so many combinations of speed and timing that can exist,” James said quickly; prepared answers Moneypenny was sure.

“Or what about when you met? Do you deny that your heart skipped a beat?”

“A heart arrhythmia isn’t uncommon in agents who just came back to life,” James said, he was still rattling off his answers a little to quickly and Moneypenny found a lot of enjoyment in the idea of James Bond trying to rationalize his love for Q while lying in bed unable to sleep because he couldn’t get the image of Q out of his head.

“It is also not uncommon among people touching their soul mates for the first time,” Moneypenny said with a tiny little smirk that made James roll his eyes. “And are you telling me that you don’t feel a slight tugging in your gut telling you to go to the office?”

“Of course I don’t,” James lied and no matter how good of a liar he was Moneypenny knew the truth. James did have a tugging to go back to the office, Q-Branch in particular. But soul mates did not exist, period, end of story. No matter how many scientific studies were done on the connection between two people who claimed to be soul mates and no matter how many of billions of people said that they were real James promised himself that he wouldn’t buy into that bullshit. And if that meant ignoring the tug in his gut he felt whenever he wasn’t with Q, or the knot in his stomach he got when Q was stressed or angry, then so be it. Q was not about to become the center of his life because Moneypenny and Tanner thought that they were in love.

That didn’t change the fact that when someone looked at Q to long he felt the particular urge to punch them in the face. Nor did it change the fact that he caught Q staring at him everyone once in a while. And it still didn’t change the fact that he did wish for a man with curly black hair and one letter for a name to be in the bar that night.


	2. Tasteless Shiny Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond and Q enjoy banter + Q likes puzzles +Okay, maybe he _loves_ puzzles=Chapter 2

          **Tuesday**

“I said ‘right’, 007,” Q said staring at his computer where Bond was being displayed through CCTV cameras. He was alone in Q-Branch since it was 4 am and he could handle walking Bond through his mission on his own. The main screen was split between the views of the stairwells, the security room, the elevators, and Bond himself. On the some of the smaller screens were the blueprints of the building, Bond’s tracking equipment, a view of the party going on downstairs, and two waiting windows; one he kept open for the information that would soon stream to his computer and one for any emergency coding he was inevitably going to need.

“I did go right,” Bond said smoothly back, looking up at the camera Q was currently using to watch him. 

Q huffed loudly so that the microphone would pick it up. “You knew what I meant.”

“Yeah, I did,” James said with a sly smirk to the camera, before turning around and going through the door that Q had meant to send him through. He could barely make out Bond’s smirk as he walked behind a desk and plugged a memory stick into the USB port. He opened the file Q had downloaded to the USB and set a virus that as far as Bond knew would unlock every file that was on the computer, and send them to a computer Q had set up on the other end. That or make the computer blow up in his face as punishment for not returning his equipment from the last mission.

“You’re insufferable,” Q commented as he opened a set of bomb plans and Bond scrolled through the documents. They fell into silence as they both started reading the information. Bond chose a recently modified document and almost laughed out loud. It had probably been heavily encrypted before Q’s virus had played with it but a master list of whatever he needed to bring down the company was just too easy.

Something moved out of the corner of Q’s eye and he focused on the other screen with the CCTV feed. “007, it’s time to go.”

 “Your little virus disagrees and what was it you said? ‘this memory stick is more dangerous than you’? Personally, I’d rather not leave weapons with the enemy,” Bond said with a razor sharp voice.

 “I know you’re new to the world of…what was it you said? Right, ‘tasteless, shiny toys’ but the drive has finished its job. The loading is the virus doing _its_ job. Now get out of the damn chair and get moving,” Q said completely exasperated with his lack field agents who understood basic computers and could still hit a target.

“Fine,” Bond said grabbing the memory stick and standing up. “How many?”

“Three on the southeast stairs and two in the northeast service elevator,” Q said smoothly. “I can delay the elevator and lock the stairs door but that wont keep them forever.”

“Okay, what are my options?” Bond said taking his gun from the holster, checking the bullets, and making sure the sensor was working. He stuffed the gun in his pocket without letting go of it and left the room. 

“Head to the stairs on the southwest side of the building,” Q said, typing in the code to stop the elevator.

“Are you really going to make me take the stairs fifty floors?” he asked as he opened the stairs door and started down the first few flights.

“You have to exercise more in your old age, 007,” Q said distractedly. Bond smirked but didn’t reply, knowing that Q needed the quiet to focus on whatever he was doing. It wouldn’t take him too long to make the code to stop the elevator and lock the door, so Bond waited for the next part of Q’s plan.

 Three floors later Q finally spoke again. “Go back up one floor, you’ll find an elevator waiting for you.”

 The agent sighed and rolled his eyes before turning around. “You couldn’t make it on the floor I was on?”

 “You didn’t disagree with me when I said you needed to workout more,” Q said and Bond could practically see the grin on his face.

 “Are you trying to tell me that your scrawny little body doesn’t need to workout?” Bond said letting the smirk run through his voice

 “My job relies on words per minute not miles per hour,” Q said. Bond went into the hallway seeing the elevator and smiling. He slipped in and the doors closed immediately.

 “How do I look?” he asked presenting himself to the camera in the corner with a wink and a predatory grin.

 Q took a moment to look away from the information to stare at the agent dressed in a well-tailored tux that sent shivers down his spin. “Sharp as ever,” Q replied in a low voice that hit Bond harder than most punches.

 “And I’m sure you look as gorgeous as always,” Bond said and Q’s heart jumped into his throat and he would be perpetually grateful that Bond couldn’t see him or the blush on his face.

 “I thought I was scrawny?” Q asked pleased that his voice was still calm and even a bit sarcastic.

 “I thought I was old?” Bond countered and Q really didn’t have a response to that. Luckily he didn’t need to respond because Bond kept talking, “Besides, scrawny works on you.”

 "I’d think that was a compliment if I didn’t know for a fact that scrawny doesn’t work on anyone,” Q said shaking his head, the blush as his face still present as he tried to focus on the file James had been reading through.

 “I’m sorry you defy normal standards and the English language,” James said sarcastically.

 “I would think with your expansive knowledge of languages you would be able to find a word to describe me. And speaking of languages, how’s your Japanese?”

 “Challenge accepted; I will find the perfect word to describe you by the time I get back. And atrocious, why?”

 “Because you’re going to Japan. The file you were reading listed a facility in Tokyo that works as their server. If I can get the right virus on it I can install a virus like the one that I sent with you on every computer that connects to the server.” 

“Is it just me, or are you excited about all the work you have to do?”

 “Yes, 007, I am excited it might actually pose a challenge. Now, I need to arrange your flight, would you like to stay at the party, or go now?” Q asked already choosing the flight for noon the next day.

 “Not very good company here, I’ll go now,” Bond replied.

 “You sure?” Q asked sounding surprised. “I can arrange a flight for tomorrow.”

 “I would hope so, _Quartermaster_ , but the people here are boring. There are really only so many times I can listen to a someone gossip about someone I’ll never meet.”

 “So only gossip of people you do know, I’ll make sure to tell Moneypenny.” Bond was only just able to pass off his laugh as a cough when an elderly man walked past. “Careful Mr. Bond, you wouldn’t want people to think you’re crazy.”

 “Who says I’m not?”

“I’ll make sure Medical brings you in for a full psych evaluation next time you’re in the county.”

 “I’ll make sure not to come back then.”

 This time it was Q’s turn to laugh quietly. “Your flight I set to leave in 4 hours from Benito Juárez International Airport. You can print out the ticket there, and in the mean time try not to blow up anything important,” Q said hoping that the smirk on his face would translate through James’s earpiece.

 “I make no promises,” James said and walking out of the building and handed the valet two hundred pesos and his ticket. The man immediately went to go find the car.  Bond looked up at the camera in the corner and smirked. “Good night, Q,” he mumbled.

 “Good morning, James,” Q whispered back. It was surprising to say the least but it was nice; almost none of the agents seemed to remember that Q was human. Not that it was entirely their fault; he did act a bit more like a machine than a person. Q even found himself smiling back despite Bond being unable to see him. He quickly scolded himself and killed the connection between them.

 This left the Quartermaster with nothing to do. He could go back to his flat, but with only two hours till he would be back in the office, he saw no point in the trek home.

Instead he scrolled through his reports from his minions and from Intel’s minions, but Q knew that he never got any of the real reports. He just got summaries, a few statistics here and there but as M had told him multiple times; he didn’t need reports, his job was to wait for orders, not give them.

That of course had about zero effect on Q’s attitude towards the lack of real reports. Unsurprisingly, the only thing that it did effect was how pissed he was at M that particular day. So, Q logged into his computer and when presented with the MI6 log in page he typed in GMallory and the skeleton key.

Immediately, Mallory’s email opened. He clicked on an email from the head of Intelligence and opened the attached report. The first page was a summery that M and Tanner would read before making decisions and it really didn’t matter since that was where his orders would be coming from for the next few months. Q scrolled past the summery and read through the statistics and graphs. He noticed one of the graphs was inclined where it shouldn’t be and focused his attention on the graph. “TOTAL DEATHS OF BRITISH CIVILIANS ON FOREIGN SOIL (CONT. pg. 76).” Q scrolled down and read the rest of the breakdown of the deaths.

It wasn’t uncommon for tourists to get in over their heads in the cities, but deaths still weren’t common. Most of the time it was just thefts and muggings. According to the chart put together by Intelligence, there had been a huge jump in the amount of shootings. Q checked the locations of the deaths and found that they were on some of the most popular tourist hotels, especially famous for catering to British citizens.

Most of the shootings were drive-bys and Q had to go into the different countries’ databases in order to get the incident reports. He went though the case files and found the stills. In every picture there was a driver and a shooter, with both of them hiding their faces behind balaclavas and a different car in each. Some of the cars were rental cars rented by different people each time, some of the cars were reported stolen and some had been hijacked.

Q enhanced each of the photos as far as they would allow so he could look for similarities between the culprits. Suddenly Q’s phone buzzed in his pocket and made him jump, forcing him out of his focus. He fished out his phone and found a text message from Tanner requesting him to come to his office. It was the same message that automatically sent from Tanner’s phone to Q’s at roughly 7am, an hour after Tanner got into the office. Q locked his computer before getting up from his desk and sending a quick text to Tanner telling him that he was on his way up.

Tanner was three floors up from Q-Branch in his almost completely glass office sitting behind his computer with a cup of coffee. Q opened Tanner’s door pulling Tanner from his own trance with his reports. He grabbed a pile of files from his desk and handed them to Q.

“Mallory will send you those same orders in a few hours when he gets in, but he doesn’t know that yet,” Tanner said plainly before turning back to his computer and finishing his email to Eve that she wouldn’t get till she got in in a few hours. Q stood in the same place as he flipped though the files he wasn’t able to focus on. Tanner looked back up after he hit send and narrowed his eyes. “Did you even go home last night?”

Q looked up from the file and shrugged. “No.”

“Try to get home tonight. I don’t want Bond to skin me when he gets back,” Tanner said taking another drink of his coffee. “Is he on his way back?”

Q shook his head. “I sent him to Tokyo.” When Tanner raised his eyebrow Q continued. “During the mission we found a file that contained information about a facility of servers that if I can install a virus on I can assume control of computer that connects to it,” Q said through a yawn.

“I’ll tell Mallory that I authorized that, and next time, try not to send your soul mate on too many impromptu missions,” Tanner said in a voice that let Q know that he really didn’t need to.

Q made a mocking salute before turning on his heal and walking back down to Q-Branch. As he passed R’s desk he tossed the files Tanner had given him onto her desk her desk. She would understand and make sure that no one bothered him while he was in his office unless he called for more tea.

 

**Thursday**

Q hadn’t stopped working on the case since he had found it two days before. He hadn’t slept, had gone though a spectacularly large amount of tea and red bull, and hadn’t eaten anything other than a few bites of whatever the minions brought in for him. He had told Tanner that he was to busy for drinks and Tanner, of course, thought nothing more of it. Sometimes Q just got obsessed with things, for all he knew Q was on another binge watching adventure seeing if he could watch every season of Lost before losing consciousness.

But even in the two days he had been working nonstop he had found almost nothing. Actually, he had found absolutely nothing to connect any of the shootings other than the suspicion that they had to be, logically. He printed off all of the information that he had gathered, including the similarities, differences, and the statistics of the shootings and put them in a file before sending an email, that may or may not have been sent from Mallory’s email, gathering Eve, Mallory, and Tanner in Mallory’s office.

The three of them were waiting for him in the office when he walked in.

“Quartermaster?”

“I did not authorize this,” Tanner said somewhere between a sigh and warning.

Q handed each of them a file and waited for them to flip through it. Speeches weren’t his forte.

Mallory was the first one to look up and speak. “Is this all?”

“Yes, sir,” Q said with a short nod.

“In the two days you stopped working on anything else?”

“I realize it needs more research-“

“No, it doesn’t need more research, it needs to be left alone. If this is all our Quartermaster could come up with in two days of research, there isn’t anything to find and you are wasting your and everyone else’s time.” Mallory snapped the file shut and handed it back to Q who only barely resisted the urge to storm out like a child.

**Saturday**

Tanner insisted that Q would be fine and would do as he was told; he was a professional after all. Eve was less convinced and went into his office completely ready to forcibly pull him out of his office. That plan went to shit the moment she opened the door. “Q?“

“Out,” he said calmly, not even looking up from his computer.

“Q-“

“OUT!” he screamed before throwing the remnants of his burrito towards the door, luckily hitting the wall instead of Eve.

Eve stared, stunned at Q for a while before he looked up at her with murder plain in his eyes.

“I. Said. Out.”

 Turning on her heal and marching out the door, Eve, through great difficulty and self-control, refrained from killing Q. Though she did slam his office door hard enough to make the rest of Q-Branch look up. That was when Moneypenny noticed the defeated look on some of their faces. They needed their Quartermaster back and saw no way of getting him back. Maybe, if they were lucky, Bond could bring him back. Maybe.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, okay, so this is interesting. This chapter wasn't supposed to be this long. Anywho, enjoy. 
> 
> P.S. Thank you to [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen) for being my beta reader!


	3. Nicer Than A Cab, huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond's back+Q is sleepy+ Burritos=Chapter 3

Two weeks on a gritty, boring-ass mission had wreaked havoc on Bond's attitude. The lack of adrenaline had left him exhausted, even though he'd managed to sleep more than twelve hours the night before.

He landed in London and went straight to Q-Branch with the intent on dropping off a laptop he'd managed to grab while with the servers. He hit the bottom of the stairs in the first basement level where Q-Branch began, and the first thing he noticed was that the smartglass in the windows had been opaqued to the point that it was impossible to see through.

Bond froze, staring at the door. There was a stack of files sitting by it, which indicated that the door hadn't been open in a while. He almost attempted to force it open, but he had tried more than once to enter when Q-Branch was in lockdown, and the biometric sensor had electrocuted him so badly each time that he'd ended up in Medical.

He warily placed his hand on the sensor and was pleasantly surprised when the sound of air being released met his ears. The door swung open, and he immediately walked in, feeling quite proud of himself. He fully intended on asking Q why he was the exception, but the words died on his lips when he saw R standing at the command center. That could mean one of two things: Q was missing, or Q was dead.

 “It’s about time you got here,” R said as soon as he was within earshot. She barely paused in her typing, and Bond slowly moved forward.

“I didn’t realize I was so dearly missed. Where’s Q?” he asked carefully , the unease that was slowly building in his stomach not apparent in his voice.

“I doubt you want to see him in his current condition.” Her tone was bored; she was tired of the repetition. When he didn’t answer she looked up at him and studied him carefully.

“I want to speak to Q,” he said finally.

“You, all of Q-Branch and 90% of the Executive Branch.” She spoke simply, dutifully ignoring the way he was eyeballing Q’s office. The smartglass in his windows was completely dark.

“Is he in his office?” Bond asked, resisting the urge to ask what the point of letting him in was if he couldn't talk to Q. R nodded, and from the way her mouth was only curling on the edges Bond knew she was suppressing a grin. He nodded in acknowledgment and walked past her.

She turned around suddenly, making Bond stop. “We did try everything. At one point we even tried to give him sedatives. They were supposed to be completely undetectable - we developed them ourselves as a project with Medical, but Q knew they were there.” She was rambling, fidgeting with the pen she was still holding in her hand.

Bond just nodded at her and continued to Q’s office.

 He opened the door, the finger print scanner on the door handle unlocking the door for him. “Q?” he askedthe dark room. He could barely make out Q’s face on the other side of the room, lit only by his computer screen.

 Bond flicked on the light and Q looked up at him, ready to curse him through all nine levels of hell. As soon as Q’s eyes actually registered that it was Bond he seemed to relax.

“What are you doing here? I sent you to Japan,” Q said turning away from the computer as Bond studied him.

 “Yes, a week and a half ago,” Bond said slowly, before leaning out of the room again to look at R. “Get Q some tea,” he said to her with a wink before ducking back into the room.

“Really? It’s been that long?”

“Glad you missed me,” Bond said sarcastically. “What have you been working on that has required so much focus?”

“I think I may have found…” he trailed off as R entered the room and set down his tea. Q immediately picked up the tea and sniffed it. Bond was sure that Q had found the sedatives again, but then Q took a drink, and Bond wondered if he even cared anymore. “I think I may have found something and I got a little caught up in it.”

“What was it?” Bond asked as he watched Q take another drink of his tea..

“Come here,” Q said, spinning his chair to face his computer again. Bond walked around and stood behind Q as files opened and closed faster than he could register. Finally Q stopped on a page covered in statistics and graphs. “That graph is the number of people dying in other countries. A little variation is expected but over the past 6 months it has almost doubled.” The window closed and another opened in its place, more statistics Bond didn’t have time to read as Q explained. “Most if not all of the rise has come from an increase in drive-by shootings.”

 “Have you taken it to M?” Bond asked.

 Q looked up at Bond and rolled his eyes. “Seriously, James, do I look like a moron?”

“I think you look like a-“

“I don’t want to know!” Q said loudly before laughing despite himself. When Bond was still smirking at him he had to resist the urge to stick his tongue out at him. “Anyway, Mallory said that because we couldn’t find a source we couldn’t do anything about it. But I know there’s a pattern, there’s always a pattern. I just can’t find it. It doesn’t make any sense. I’ve looked into everything. The cars, the weapons, the drivers, the shooters, everything. There is no pattern, and I even looked into the lack of a pattern as a pattern, and still nothing.”

By the time he'd finished his little speech, Q's voice had gone frantic, and his hands had stared waving uselessly in the air. So, Bond placed his hands on Q’s shoulders, and Q calmed down enough to let his head fall back and hit Bond’s stomach. “You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Q asked, a sad expression on his face.

Bond squeezed Q’s shoulders comfortingly and giving him a small smile. “Of course not. If even a kid like you can catch a pattern, then we have some serious problems.”

Q smiled up at him and settled his head back on Bond before closing his eyes. “You should probably take me home before the sedatives kick in,” Q said softly, without opening his eyes.

“You knew and still drank it?” Bond asked with a small laugh.

Q spun his chair back around and stood up, suddenly very close to Bond. “When your second in command and Double-O team up to knock you out, I think it’s time to go home,” Q smiled gently at Bond before moving out of the way and grabbing his coat from a hook on a wall. He tried twice to put the coat on before Bond took it from him. “Sorry, drugs must be kicking in. Motor skills and all that.” Bond helped him put the jacket on, his hands lingering for just a moment on Q’s arms.

Q turned around and nodded to Bond, ignoring the urge to thank Bond for the help with a peck on the cheek. They walked out of Q’s office, only to stop just outside the door. “Q?”

“Yes, James?”

 “Why is there a burrito on the floor?”

“I may have thrown it at Moneypenny,” Q said thoughtfully.

“You did,” every minion supplied without looking up.

“You’re still alive?” Bond asked with a smile.

“Thus far,” the minions chimed in.

“It’s pretty uncertain what she will do once he gets some sleep and can actually remember what she does for him,” R smiled at them.

“We’re stopping at Moneypenny’s office on the way to the car then,” Bond sighed and rolled his eyes before steering Q away from the projects the minions were working on.

“Goodnight, Minions,” Q said over his shoulder as Bond half pushed him out the door.

“Goodnight, Overlord,” they all happily hummed.

* * *

 

“You threw a _burrito_ at me,” Eve stressed for the third time.

“And I’m apologizing for that,” Q countered. They were standing in Moneypenny’s office as Q tried to figure out what an apology was. Bond was standing very close to Q with one hand floating just off of Q’s back, ready to catch him should he fall. This earned them alternating looks of question and frustration from Moneypenny.

“’Please don’t kill me for throwing a burrito at you’ is not an apology,” Moneypenny explained.

“Fine, I’m sorry for throwing a burrito at you,” Q finally said, and as if on cue enter Tanner.

“Learning that it’s not okay to throw burritos at people?” he asked grinning at Q and Bond’s arrangement.

“I’m pretty sure I only threw one burrito,” Q said corrected, though he was still searching his memory for when he might have.

“I’ll report tomorrow,” Bond said stiffly to Tanner. Bond still technically answered to Mallory but Tanner was the only one that he would actually take orders from.

“Just take care of the Quartermaster,” Tanner said with a nod. Q and Bond took that as their hint to leave.

The drive to Q’s flat only took a few minutes, but with a sleeping Quartermaster next to him it seemed to drag on forever. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of the boffin curled against the door. “Q, wake up,” Bond said when they arrived in front of Q’s flat. Q just grumbled and curled up more. “I’m not carrying you up to your bloody flat.”

“Fine,” Q whined without opening his eyes, having to try four times to open the door before finally stumbling out of the car.

“Come here,” Bond said extending his arm. Q grabbed his hand only for Bond to move him again so that Bond’s arm was around his waist .

“Oh, Mr. Bond,” Q said in a voice slurred by exhaustion. It was supposed to sound witty and mock the girls Bond seduced on a regular basis, Bond was sure of that, but the exhaustion dripping from Q’s voice only made him sound like one of them.

“Shut up, I don’t want you to fall on the way up to your flat,” Bond replied as he half dragged, half carried Q up the stairs of entry, nodding to the doorman. Once they were in the elevator Bond let Q slid against the wall, but still keeping a hand close just in case Q started to fall.

There were only four flats on Q’s floor, one for each corner Bond assumed. Q gestured vaguely to the door on the southeast wall and to his credit tried to stay awake and walk by himself. It almost irritated Bond that he couldn’t just pick up the other man and carry him into his room and be done with it. But he couldn’t so he waited for Q to unlock the door before Q led him in.

“How exactly did you get a penthouse like this?” Bond asked once inside. Two of the walls were completely glass looking out over London. It was decorated in a sleek modern look that was almost completely ruined by all of the papers, nicknacks, possible explosives, and the pile of dirty dishes in the sink.

“Parents bought it for me when I graduated uni,” Q said not caring that Bond was in the room as he stripped down to his pants. “Goodnight, James,” Q said before kissing Bond’s cheek again and walking towards his couch, flopping down on it and almost immediately falling into unconsciousness.

Bond stood awkwardly for a while. Q hadn’t told him he had to leave and he had the urge to shift everything in Q’s flat to the left by a few centimeters just to see if Q would notice, but then if he did notice the next gun received from Q might just shoot bubbles instead of bullets. Instead Bond settled for picking up a blanket off of the floor behind Q’s couch and draping it over Q’s body. He tried very hard to find a rational reason for doing this but couldn’t quite manage one that wasn’t completely laughable. So he ignored it and left the flat after taking a bottle of scotch that Q had never opened and leaving a note in its place. “Took your scotch as payment for driving you home. I’m nicer than a cab, huh?”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Woo! That was faster than anticipated. Anywho I hope you liked this chapter ~~the next one might be a while. Life, school, NaNoWriMo. I should have read the terms and conditions more before I signed on to be alive. It's so much work!~~.
> 
> Huge thanks again to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome. ~~She's the reason you got an update so soon~~


	4. Your Lips Are Soft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q has explosives+ Bond has food=Chapter 4

Explosions were a sure-fire way to get rid of stress.

At least, that was how Q saw it. There was something insanely gratifying about erasing something's existence from the earth with large amounts of fire that just melted the tension away. So, testing explosives all day seemed like a good way to make himself forget about making a complete and utter fool of himself in front of 007.

He had woken that morning with the remnants of a headache and the fragmented shards of a few memories of him and Bond being... affectionate. Each burst of recall made him cringe, and he prayed to whatever deity watched over drugged boffins that the memories had been a product of the REM stages of sleep.

The he had found the note on his counter, from Bond, and the idea of plausible denial flew out the window. He only remembered small bits and pieces, but he knew that every single one of those pieces was more than enough to make him flee the country. Instead, however, he hid in the very lowest levels of Q-Branch, testing explosives that had already been cleared for use.

That method of distracting himself worked until about seven that night. He sniffed the air, and then gently set down the grenade he was holding, his nose wrinkling slightly at the familiar scent of Thai food. It reminded him that he hadn't eaten since his hurried breakfast that morning, and that he really should have taken Tanner up on his offer for lunch. Maybe he could convince the man to bring him dinner down, though it was statistically more likely that Tanner would demand that Q exit his cave.

“Thought you could use some food.” Bond's voice echoed only slightly in the observation room, but Q jumped, turning guiltily. He hadn't even heard the door open.

“How thoughtful,” Q said with a small smile, pushing the embarrassment to the back of his mind. Maybe the events of the night before would go away if they both ignored them, if they just pretended that the past 36 hours hadn't ever happened. Then Q wouldn't have to change his name and start working entirely from home. “What did you bring me?”

“Pork massamum curry, or something like that,” Bond answered, just a little too casually. He took a to-go container out of the bag at his side and set it on the metal table in front of Q, giving him a charming smile.

“You interrogated R, then.” Q took a fork from Bond and peeled off the lid of them to-go container. He almost immediately recognized the familiar smell, as well as plating style of the food. Bond had gone to Q's favourite restaurant – the one that was halfway across London – and managed to convince the small, sit-down place to a takeaway order. 

“No, I guessed.”

“Liar.”

Bond chuckled, opening his own container of noodles. “I've only ever lied once to you.”

“Oh? And when was that?” Q asked with an arched eyebrow.

“When I said all I saw was a bloody big ship.”

“And what did you see?”

“Coloured oil on a canvas, and nothing more.”

Q sighed, but he was sporting a grin. “You wouldn’t know good art if it smacked you over the head.”

“It’s hard to like something that’s hitting you.” Bond gave him a triumphant smile, very similar to the one he had given Q when they first met. “But that’s all beside the point. I’ve never lied to you. Odd as that is.” Bond's voice went quiet as he spoke, and his eyes glazed over slightly, as if he was remembering some distant memory.

Q froze, his fork halfway to his mouth as he stared at Bond. No one simply /guessing/ someone's favourite food, especially when it was something like pork massamum curry from a small one-person shop in London. Nor did they show up with food from said restaurant, the one that didn't do takeaway. Granted, people also didn't sedate their coworkers and drive them home. Normal people didn't do that. But, apparently, James Bond did. He guessed Q's favourite food and brought it to him, not even knowing if Q was still going to be in the Branch.

“What?” Bond asked with a slightly lopsided grin, the one that Q knew was reserved only for himself. Bond had perched himself on one of the stools at the table, and he nodded at the one opposite him. “You're eating like a horse. Sit down.”

Shaking his head slightly, Q pulled out the stool, taking a seat. “Nothing. Just something Tanner said to me a while back.”

“What? 'Turn in your paperwork'?”

Q snorted unattractively. “Some of us don't need to be reminded.”

“Are you implying something?” Bond asked innocently.

“Yes.”

“You wound me.”

“I don't think I could. Not unless I locked you in that room,” Q said, nodding at the room through the window with scorched walls and shrapnel from the last explosion.

Bond let out a laugh and Q felt just a little too pleased with himself. 

“I thought you could do more damage before your first sip of Earl Grey?” 

“Oh, I can. There are tracking devices embedded in your skin coded so that if I hit just the right combination of keys you’d pass out... or die, should the need arise. Unfortunately, Mallory said testing the kill button was ‘inhumane’ or something ridiculous like that.”

“Yes, because Q-Branch has always been such a proponent of humanity.” Bond grinned.

Q looked at him in mock offense. “You wound me.”

“I’m sure.”

They fell into comfortable silence after that. They ate, and even after Q went back to testing explosives, Bond stayed and watched.

“Why are you here, James?” Q asked finally. He was quickly running out of explosives and didn’t want to have the conversation without something to distract himself.

“I wanted to talk to you about yesterday,” Bond said simply.

“I’m sure. Whatever I-“

“I’m sorry.”

Q turned, all but dropping his tablet and his jaw. “You’re what?”

“I’m sorry for drugging you. I have since been informed that is not a nice thing to do.”

“I see.” He adjusted his glasses and hoped to temporarily hide his blush from Bond. “Moneypenny put you up to this?”

“Yeah…I don’t really regret taking care of you.”

Q felt his flush deepen. “I’m glad you did it. Sleeping is good for me, generally speaking, and I seemed to be neglecting that. I do, however, regret almost everything else from my memory of last night” 

“Don’t.”

“I’m pretty sure I kissed you at some point, James,” Q said finally, looking at Bond. He couldn’t quite stand not being able to know how Bond was really reacting. “That goes far beyond unprofessional.”

“Do you see me complaining? Your lips are soft.”

“Dear Lord,” Q grumbled, looking back down at his tablet.

Bond smiled slightly. “It's really not that big of a deal.”

“Yes, it is. Can we just forget that the last 36 hours?” Q asked, careful not to sound like he was begging. Quartermasters didn’t beg.

“And forget how nice you looked in just your pants? Seems like a shame,” Bond replied with a smirk.

Q swatted his arm and glared at him. 

Bond let out a chuckle at Q before nodding. “We can pretend yesterday didn’t happen.”

“Thank you,” Q said with a sigh of relief. Bond only managed to stay quite for a few moments before he was at Q’s side.

“So are those explosives for me?” he asked with a grin. 

“I swear to God, you're a five-year-old in Armani,” Q snapped, although there was no venom behind his words.

“That wasn’t a ‘no.’”

“Nor was it a yes.”

“Come on, Q. I’m your favorite,” Bond said lightly. He stepped in between Q and the table, lowering Q’s tablet and forcing Q to look at him.

“I don’t have favorites,” Q lied. In truth Bond was Q’s favourite, or one of them, at the very least. 002 always brought back her equipment and actually wrote the post-mission reports.

“Exactly. You only have one.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Q asked, mock-impatiently.

Bond shrugged but moved from his place between Q and the table. “Not really, but I’ll let you get back to work.” He gathered up the trash and tossed it in the bucket, before he gave Q a wink and left.

Q shook his head with a sigh. It took him another hour to close down everything and lock up the explosives so that bored agents couldn’t go around blowing up half the city. Then he went upstairs and sent a text to one of the drivers from the carpool. MI6 didn’t like having their Quartermaster take the Tube unless absolutely necessary.

When he got outside, there was an unmarked black sedan waiting for him. He gave the driver a strained smile and got nothing back from the impassivity of the man's sunglasses, and he wondered why he even tried as he climbed into the back of the car.

The door shut, and Q opened his mouth to say, “Home, please,” but before he could get it out, something pinched the side of his neck. “What the... ow...”

“Terribly sorry about this, Quartermaster,” a voice said from the front seat, and it was the last thing Q heard before unconsciousness took over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge thanks to [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome!


	5. I Wouldn't Want To Disappoint You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chick is fucking nuts + I like her + Except she's torturing Q + So I like her less + Also hurt/no comfort = Chapter 5
> 
> **There is lots and lots of violence in this chapter! Q is tortured! Skip to the notes at the end for a brief summery to avoid torture!**

Q woke slowly, his head throbbing and his limbs stiff. Through the fog littering his brain, he wondered why he had fallen asleep on the floor, but he made no move to get up, surprisingly unwilling to move. He heard a voice coming from somewhere across the room, and suddenly, memories of whenever he was last conscious came flooding back.

“But I want to wake him up,” a woman's voice complained. Q managed to force his eyes open at the sound, but his glasses were conveniently missing and everything was more than a bit of a blur. He could make out a couch and a few person-shaped figures sitting around on them, all of them with their backs turned to him. 

“We have been over this. Do you not remember what happened the last time I let you 'wake someone up' before the drugs wore off?” The second voice was masculine, strong, and authoritative. Q filed his accent and inflections away.

“It wasn't my fault he bled out before he cracked,” the woman countered defensively. 

Q's blood ran cold at the words. Torture. Of course they were going to torture him. What else were they going to do? Kidnap him to offer him tea?

“He could not even form a coherent sentence yet,” the man said. “You will wait until the kid can talk, and then you can get to work, understand?”

The woman sighed heavily, and there was the sound of fabric rustling. “Fine.”

A door behind Q opened, and he winced as someone entered, paused, and bent down, touching the fluttering pulse in his neck. The fingers disappeared, but the smell of greasy Chinese lingered as the figure moved away. “The Quartermaster is awake,” the newcomer said as he set down the plastic bags.

“Well, that's convenient.” The woman sounded positively gleeful, and Q assumed that it was her that bounded to her feet, walking past the newcomer to come crouch down in front of him.

“If you start now, your food will get cold,” the man with the takeaway bags said. He set them down, and there was a rustling for a few moments as the men took out the food.

The woman grinned. “I'll reheat it.” She was close enough that Q could make out her face, which was pretty, aesthetically speaking, a few scars running down her face. “Hello, Quartermaster. How did you sleep?” She asked the question as if she wasn't unrolling a set of knives and various other tools, ones that made Q scramble back and press himself against the wall.

“I'll likely have a few stiff joints tomorrow,” Q deadpanned, his voice surprisingly even. “Sleeping on the floor is never really comfortable.”

She looked down at him and smiled. “That's unfortunate. We really do want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“I'd be legions more comfortable if I had my glasses.”

“Sorry, green-eyes. Can't do that one for you.” She almost sounded remorseful, but Q doubted that was the case. “We had to destroy them. I'm sure you understand. We couldn't have someone using them to track you down and spoil all the fun we're about to have.” She smiled again, and Q felt his stomach lurch.

He tried to focus on basic training. How to survive torture. Disassociation. Selective sensory input. Because he couldn't tell them anything. Of course, they hadn't asked for anything yet, but there were only so many bits of information that an MI6 Quartermaster was good for. That still didn't rule out the possibility that this was all just an elaborate revenge scheme, but at least if it was about information, there was a chance that he would be able to reason with them.

“So,” the woman began in a sing-song voice. “How much do you know our little club?”

“Considering the pertinent fact that I don't even know who's asking, I don't think I can answer that.” Q knew he shouldn't be sassing his captors. Making them angry wasn't going to help him any, but it was better than limp acquiescence, at least in his book.

The woman snorted. “You've been snooping into our projects for almost two weeks, pretty. What do you know?” She wasn't even looking at him, instead choosing to run her fingers delicately over her tools, as if trying to select one.

Q stayed silent, staring blankly at her.

She frowned before raising her head to look at him. “Rude,” she said, as if truly offended, before grabbing one of Q's fingers. Before the hacker could even react, she bent it back towards his wrist until the bone creaked, right on the edge of breaking. Q screamed, trying to jerk his hand away, but the woman's grip was strong. “Still no answer?” At Q's continued silence, she flexed her hand and Q's finger snapped.

Q scrambled in his mind for something to calm him down. A memory, an image, anything. The only thing his mind supplied was one of the million memories of him in Q-branch, with Bond standing next to him, and he latched onto that, trying to focus on the memory of the peacefulness with the agent around instead of the searing pain in his finger.

“Don't hurt his hands too much,” the first man said, his tone slightly bored. “He's going to need them.”

The woman made a disappointed sound as Q breathed a sound of relief. “All right.” She picked up a short, thin knife that looked _sharp_ and somewhat deadly. “Let's get started, then. How much do you know?”

Q stayed stubbornly silent, screwing his eyes shut as he prepared himself for her to begin the process of making him talk. Bond's image appeared behind his eyelids, and he took a deep breath as the woman chuckled.

There was a sharp flash of pain down Q's arm as the blade sliced his skin. He tried his best to choke back his scream, but it tipped past his gritted teeth and leaked into the air, sounding tight and harsh. The image of Bond looked worried.

 _Hey, hey, there. It's all right._ the hallucination said. _I'm on my way right now. I'm going to get you out, Q. It's all going to be okay. I'm coming._

The knife halted at the top of his wrist, and Q allowed himself to open his eyes to look at the woman. She was smiling. Not grinning to intimidate him, but smiling because she honestly enjoyed making him squirm, enjoyed causing him pain.

“He's not squealing,” she said to the men behind her, though neither of them turned to face her. “Well... he's squealing, but he's not talking.”

The first man raised his hand, waving it for a moment. “Don't hurt his hands. Other than that, I don't give a fuck what you do to him. Find out what he knows and who he told.”

The woman smiled again, looking as if she was suppressing an excited laugh. “Well, then, Quartermaster, it looks as if they're giving me free reign. Time to have some real fun.”

“Well, let's be honest, then. You couldn't have been trying that hard.” Q shot a grin right back, knowing that he could get through the ordeal if he convinced himself that he was okay, that it wasn't really happening. That was what they had told him when he became Quartermaster and an asset to MI6.

“I wouldn't want to disappoint you,” the woman answered, picking up a lighter. She clicked it on, and Q barely had time to register what was happening before the woman pushed the flame forward, letting it curl around the beginning of the cut on his shoulder. 

Q bit down on his lip, hard, to keep from screaming. Tears streamed down his face, and he wanted to plead, wanted to beg for her to stop, to tell them that he had found nothing, that they were just too _good_ to be found. He just wanted it to stop. 

The image of Bond returned, and this time, he wrapped Q up in his arms, holding him close and kissing his temple gently. _I'm coming. Just bear with me, darling. I'm coming. I promise._

There was a clicking noise as the lighter shut, and Q let out a small whimper. His arm was covered in blood, slowly dripping onto the floor. The woman had cauterized the wound, and after giving an irritated sigh, she stood up and walked out of the room.

Q let out a quiet sob before he remembered that he wasn't alone. The two men didn't seem to mind, however, completely ignoring his sounds and the smell of burning flesh as well.

The woman returned a moment later with a full bucket of water, letting it slosh around as she walked over to him. Q couldn't help but shrink away in anticipation of what was going to happen.

“I would really love to do this properly – you know. Dunk your entire body. Alas, they said it was too much effort to set up, so we're going to have to settle for this. I believe it can be just as effective.” She unlocked Q's handcuffs, slipping his hands away from the radiator before twisting them behind his back and snicking them together again. She then slid a hand into his hair and pulled him up to his knees.

 _Bloody shame,_ he wanted to say, to maintain his facade of being a sarcastic little shit, but he couldn't force his throat to get the words out.

“Now, then. You don't look like you're having nearly as much fun as I am.” The woman bent down, brushing a drop of blood away from the corner of Q's mouth. “I can make it stop, you know. Contrary to popular belief, those men over there do have hearts...”

“No we don’t,” the two men commented in unison.

“Well,” the woman amended. “They have more of a heart than I do. I really would enjoy making you scream for much, much longer, but as soon as you give us what we need, we'll let you walk away. Or crawl. It depends on how soon you decided to roll over and play nice.”

Q made no move to respond to her, simply bracing himself for whatever was coming next. 

“Mm. Have it that way, then.” The woman shrugged, and then her hand darted forward, gripping Q's hair as she shoved his head forward into the bucket of water. He struggled against his bonds and her hand, twisting and turning, considering breaking his thumb at one point to get away from it. He brain, the part of it that was still logical and rational, shot that possibility down, and then scampered back to Bond.

_I'm coming to get you. Just hang in there._

The woman pulled his head up just as he thought he was going to pass out. He choked, coughing and spitting water into the air as he held him in place, her grip tight and unforgiving. As soon as he started gasping for air, however, she pushed him back down. He caught the water on an inhale and started choking in earnest, never really stopping as she repeated the process a handful of times.

He couldn't find it in himself to make a noise of complaint when she jerked his arms around, cuffing him to the radiator again. “I'll be back in a little bit,” she whispered to him, the promise hanging thick in the air. She walked over to the other men, and Q heard them begin to speak, but it was nothing more important than where the food had been put.

He drifted off into unconsciousness wishing that Bond would keep his promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The short version is Q is being tortured and a hallucination of Bond comforts him (a little) promising to come and get him.
> 
> Thanks again to my beta reader/editor person [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome!
> 
> Also, chapters should be sooner since finals are over!


	6. Missing as in Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bond has hallucinations + Q's not in Q-Branch + Tanner knows all = Chapter 6

Bond went into MI6 to find Tanner the day after his dinner with Q (it wasn't a date, he reminded himself diligently – Q was not interested in an old man like Bond). He had to check in with see if there were any missions that needed his attention before he went speeding off across London. He had woken up with an urge to go across town and run down different streets without any particular reason.

He was in the building, on his way up to Tanner's office when his breath suddenly left him. He leaned up against the wall of the elevator, taking quick, shallow breaths as he tried to undo his tie, only to find that his hands were shaking too much for that to be manageable. 

“Fuck.” He swore under his breath, sliding to the ground and gasping for air, wishing he could get rid of the feeling. He felt one of his fingers snap backwards, and had to choke down the scream that was in his throat. _What the fuck?_ he thought as he looked down at his perfectly fine hand. _Drugs_. He let out a string of curses and hit the button for Medical.

He felt his arm slit open and he choked back another scream, looking at his arm that was certainly not bleeding despite the feeling. His brain scanned through everything he had eaten or drank that morning. He forced himself up as the doors opened, stumbling out into the hallway he yelled for a nurse and got Tanner instead.

“007, what’s going on?” Tanner asked, holding up Bond as he swayed.

“Poisoned,” Bond gasped.

Tanner yelled for a nurse again and three people came rushing forward to Bond’s side, carrying him to a room and forcing him down. The cutting on his arm stopped, only to be followed by burning. There was a pinch in his arm that he barely noticed as the burning continued like someone was holding a lighter to his skin. 

It stopped suddenly and Bond was left panting as the doctors rushed around him. “007, what’s going on?” a doctor asked him as he shined a light in Bond’s eyes.

“Hallucinations,” Bond bit out. The need to get across town multiplied, and he almost got up and left the room. He also needed to see Q, not that he knew why, but he did.

“Of what?” the doctor asked as he moved to listen to his breathing.

“Torture,” Bond said. A doctor was drawing blood, but all Bond wanted to do was rip his arm out of her grip and get to Q-Branch. but he let them run their tests, only because Tanner was watching him carefully, completely prepared to start fighting Bond if he had to.

Bond’s head was dunked in as bucket of water and he felt himself start to drown. Panic immediately set in even though he knew that he was in the Medical wing of MI6. He didn’t want to drown, he couldn’t drown, though somewhere in the back of his mind he thought it was appropriate. 

“More hallucinations?” Bond heard vaguely. It was probably one of the doctors but he couldn’t really tell. The only thing that he knew was that he needed to find Q. After a while the feeling of drowning stopped and the doctors continued running their tests. 

After an hour they let him go after they didn’t find anything in his blood. He wanted to run to Q-Branch but he forced himself to maintain a semi composed manor and walked down the steps to Q-Branch.

In the basements of MI6 Q-Branch had glass walls surrounding the computer lab where Q could almost always be found. Bond had watched him enough times to know that Q rarely even left the command center at the front of the room. The mininons would bring his tea and he would stand there in his spot in his own little world for hours on end. It would only take a moment to find Q so that Bond could feel just a tad better.

The only problem was that Q was not in his spot at the front of the computer lab. R was. Bond threw oen the glass door and stomped up the front and slmapped his hands flat on the metal desk. 

“Where is Q?” he asked her roughly in his most threatening voice. 

She looked up at him in confusion. She scanned over his entire body with suspicion and a little bit of anger. “Excuse you?” she asked slowly.

“I know you know who I am and what I can do so just answer my question. Where is Q?” he tired again.

She continued just to glare at him.

“Listen…” he started but she cut him off.

“No, you listen,” R snapped, laying her hands flat on the table between them, mimicking Bond. All of Q-Branch turned to look at them even though neither one of them was really paying attention to that. “I do know who you are but you do _not_ scare me, 007. You will not try and threaten me again. Is that understood?” 

They stared at each other for a long time before he nodded slowly.

“Alright. Now, if you had asked nicely I would have told you that I don’t know where Q is. He’s not here, anyway,” she said lightly. She went back to her trying even as she continued to watch him between glances at the computer screen.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” Bond asked accusingly.

“I mean exactly what I said. Q isn’t here; he didn’t come in today. The man is allowed a day off every once in a while,” she said with a small laugh at Bond.

“Where is he?” Bond asked again.

R laughed at him again. “I don’t know. I’m his subordinate not his keeper,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Bond sighed and moved backwards. “Okay, thank you, R,” he said in a soft voice that made R think he as about to bypass every set of regulation right in front of her. 

To her surprise Bond just turned and walked out of Q-Branch and went back to the elevator. He went back upstairs to Tanner’s office. R might not know where Q was, after all she was his subordinate, but Tanner was Q’s friend and the Chief of Staff and he was bound to know where Q was.

Another knot of anxiety formed in Bond’s stomach as he waited for the elevator. He tried to shake it off since it really was one of the most ridiculous things he had ever felt. Q was safe, he had to be, there wasn’t a doubt in Bond’s mind. Instead the doubt was twisting in his stomach, making him want to vomit, and crawling under his skin. 

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open and he was almost run over by four Q-Branch minions in too much of a rush to notice him. Bond rolled his eyes and stood in the elevator by himself while he tried to get his feelings under control.

The doors slid open again and he was on the executive level where Tanner was. Bond didn’t even bother with knocking before going into the Chief of Staff’s office. 

Tanner huffed in annoyance just to make a point. They both knew he didn’t really care. Tanner was in Bond’s close, and rather small, circle of friends that he decided he didn’t have a lot of boundaries with and Tanner had come to expect Bond to act like a five year old. “Is there something you need, 007?” Tanner asked.

“Where is Q?” Bond blurted out. He had meant to sound causal and not like he was about to go and rip all of London to shreds if he didn’t find the Quartermaster.

“Q-Branch, I assume,” Tanner answered calmly. He was watching Bond very carefully as the agent gripped the back of the chair he was standing in front of so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. 

Bond almost growled at the casual tone Tanner was taking. 

Tanner must have noticed anyway because he nodded and turned to his computer. “I can see if he’s logged in today…” Tanner started but was cut off by Bond.

“R said that he just didn’t come in today,” Bond bit through his clenched teeth.

This made Tanner start cursing and typing on his computer.

“You didn’t happen to wake up with the urge to go somewhere this morning did you?” Tanner asked with a grimace.

“What does that have to do with Q?” Bond asked sharply.

“Answer the damn question, 007,” Tanner snapped.

“Yes,” Bond answered obediently.

“Fuck,” Tanner said, picking up the phone on his desk and punching in the Q-Branch extension.

Bond just stood silently as Tanner is working. Someone in Q-Branch picked up and Tanner immediately demands to speak to R. They, of course, transferred him.

“I need you to track Q,” he snapped out.

“Of course, sir,” Bond heard R answer through the phone. “He’s a popular man today,” she said absently. Bond was sure that there must be typing going on because that’s always the noise. He almost wished that he could listen to it even though it wouldn’t be the right rhythm. “Oh, that’s not good.”

“What?” Tanner barked at her.

“The device is gone. The last signal that we got from it was here at 10 pm,” R said. 

Tanner pinched the bridge of his nose before he spoke, “Find Q and call me back.” He hung up and started dialing Mallory’s direct extension. Tanner started tapping his foot as the phone rang. After the fourth ring Mallory picked up.

“I’m very busy, Mr. Tanner,” Mallory said harshly.

“The Quartermaster is missing,” Tanner said calmly.

“Missing as in Bond missing or missing as in danger?” Mallory asked.

“He’s being tortured, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome.


	7. South. Suburbs. Rundown House.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Badass!Bond + Helpful!Tanner + Almost a fairytale ending = Chapter 7

Mallory had sent out a recall to every agent in England, making them amass back at MI6 so that when they finally located Q, there would be a team ready to go extract him immediately. Q-Branch was full of people typing away on their computers, dead to the rest of the world as they tracked down their boss electronically. In the midst of all of this, Bond was confined to Mallory's office. It would have been Medical, if he'd allowed it, but Bond was Bond, and Medical was out of the question.

Once the search was in full-swing, Tanner stopped by to check in on Bond. He walked inside the room and took a seat next to the agent, his eyes scanning him as if he would be able to find out what was wrong simply by sight. “Q's missing,” he said carefully after a moment. 

“I got that, thanks,” Bond bit out. He knew that he would probably regret acting that way towards Tanner, but he just couldn't make himself care. Not while his anxiety just kept getting worse. He wasn't sure how much more of it he could stand, locked up and bloody _useless_. He wanted to run, and scream, and see Q. He just needed to see Q.

Tanner took a deep breath, but he didn't call the agent out on his short temper. “When you woke up this morning, you didn't feel quite right, did you?” he asked patiently. 

Bond didn't answer at first. Tanner was right, of course. He hadn't felt right when he had woken up, but he wasn't one to talk about a vague feeling he had had that morning. He would have sounded absolutely ridiculous to anyone who possessed at least half a brain. Hell, he had sounded ridiculous to himself after his heart calmed down and stopped threatening to burst out of his chest. But the rounds of pseudo-torture hadn't stopped, and he was in no state to argue with Tanner. Eventually, he choked out his answer. “No, I didn't.”

“That's because you and Q are bonded. You knew he was in trouble. Your hallucinations of torture are what he's going through right now. He was calm, almost stoic, just like he always was, and Bond would have thanked God for him if he believed in that particular deity. “Was the one in the elevator the first one?”

“Yes,” Bond answered shortly. He didn't give his voice a chance to waver or shake like his hands were doing, gripping the chair so tightly that his fingers were beginning to ache. 

“That's good,” Tanner said, his voice reassuring. “It means they let him sleep overnight, and they've only engaged in two sessions.” His assurances, however, only got him a glare.

“He can't go through it again.”

“Q's stronger than...”

Bond cut him off. “I can feel it, Tanner. He can't go through it again.”

“Right.” Tanner patted Bond's stiff shoulder. “We'll find him.”

Bond was still sitting in Mallory's office when 005 and 009 came into the room. “Q-Branch says that they aren't any closer to finding the Quartermaster.”

“And it took two of you to tell me that?” Mallory snapped.

“No, sir. R would like us to take 007 to Q-Branch to assist with the search.”

“Why him?” Mallory asked, and Bond narrowed his eyes in suspicion. Mallory wasn't an idiot, and Bond had thought he was being almost as obvious as someone could be. Bond knew why they wanted him, and Mallory had to know, too.

“They didn't say, sir.” 009 shrugged. “They just said to get Bond if we could.”

“Fine.” Mallory waved a hand. “Take him.” Bond stood up, and he was almost sick all over the floor and 009's shoes. 005 watched him carefully as he moved out of the room, and honestly, Bond couldn't blame him. But as soon as the door closed, he could feel 005's hand floating just behind his back.

“I'm not going to fall.”

“You might,” 009 commented, a bit of a smile in her voice. “To think. Not only did you manage to find your mate, but it's _Q_.” The woman laughed at him, and he glared. “You didn't even believe in soul mates.”

Bond just shot her a glare as they got into the lift.

“Do you still not?” she asked, looking completely dumbfounded. 

“No,” Bond answered. “I'm just particularly enjoying glaring at you.”

“Oh, defensive Bond. That's new.” 005's laugh was light, and Bond knew that they were trying to make him feel better, to take his mind off what was happening, but it was just irritating him. He continued to glare, and eventually, they reverted back into their normal, unflappable selves.

Q-Branch was even worse than Bond thought it would be. He had anticipated a commotion, with R barking out orders and people running around. Instead, there was almost dead silence. The clicking of keys was the only sound, and everyone was staring only at their respective computer screens. Tanner, standing next to the command center where R was, nodded when Bond came in, motioning him over.

“You know where Q is,” Tanner said, just as soon as Bond was within earshot.

“That's a great theory, Tanner, but I think I would have told someone by now if I did.”

Tanner had to force himself not to roll his eyes. “Bond, it's a matter of the bond.” He paused. “You woke up this morning needing to go somewhere. Where was it?”

“South. Suburbs. Rundown house.” Bond spoke choppily, his voice terse.

“Can you filter that into the search?” Tanner asked R hopefully. Well, not quite hopefully. They knew better than that.

“Probably.” R shrugged uncertainly. “Eventually, but right now all we know is that he's in the southern suburbs in a rundown house. It narrows our search down considerably, but it doesn't help all that much.” R didn't seem to realize Bond was listening. That, or she didn't care that she was giving him yet another crisis over the fact that he couldn't help Q. She turned around and began altering her directions for their search, and Bond leaned up against the wall, closing his eyes and trying to refine his own search for the boffin.

He sorted through the millions of emotions that were still swirling around unpleasantly in his stomach and found the urge to go across town. He screwed his eyes shut and forced himself to focus on that pull, no matter how unpleasant it was. Q-Branch melted away, and Bond found himself curled up in a ball on the floor. He couldn't see anything, and he couldn't move, and he figured out fairly quickly that he was in Q's head. The nausea in his stomach went away, and was replaced by fear, and anger, and then more fear.

It made him work that much harder to figure out where he was. There were bits and pieces of information that Q was taking it, but there was nothing solid, nothing to help pinpoint his location. He heard a few voices, smelled blood and dirt, but that was it. 

A moment later, Tanner said something that snapped Bond out of his trance.

“What?”

“You should try to get some rest in the barracks,” Tanner repeated. “We'll send someone to get you as soon as we find him.”

Bond nodded, and Tanner patted his chest lightly before practically pushing him out of the room. As soon as he was in a blind spot, though, hidden from the security cameras, Bond checked the pocket that Tanner hat touched. Inside was Tanner's MI6 ID and Access Pass that could get him just about anywhere. Bond smirked slightly to himself, and then headed down to the garage, using Tanner's ID to check out the fastest car available. 

The automobile was top of the line, brand new from Q-Branch. Q himself had installed the tech into it that changed all the stoplights to green as the car approached. Bond took the opportunity to turn that particular addition on, and he raced across town just as fast as the car would take him. The emotions in his gut slowly became more intense, and soon, he couldn't separate what he was feeling from what Q was feeling.

He tried to tell Q that everything was going to be all right through their connection. He didn't know if it worked, since knowing about soul mates was never really a requirement for his job, but he continued to repeat it. To try and comfort Q in any way that he could, even if he couldn’t get there yet. 

He was in the middle of a rundown residential area when his gut practically forced him to stop the car. He looked at one of the houses that he was now stopped in front of and saw the house he had been drawn to all day. Turning the car off, he grabbed his gun, checking the clip and grabbing a spare from the glove compartment, just in case he wanted to fill the bastards who had taken his Q with lead. 

Bond got out of the car and left the door open, not willing to give them any sort of warning that he was there. He avoided the lines of sight from the windows and made his way up to the front door, and instinctively, he knew that Q was just inside, in the room to the right of the door, and that there were three other people that needed to die. 

As quietly as he could, Bond opened the front door and moved inside. The awful smell of burning flesh and hair met his nose, but he ignored it, pivoting towards the room. From what he could tell, no one knew that he had entered the house. There was a woman kneeling in front of Q's curled body on the floor, and slowly, he raised the gun. A moment later, it went off, and the woman fell to the side as blood and brain matter sprayed out of the exit wound. 

Everything moved in slow motion as Bond saw two men stand up from a couch and turn to him. He killed one before either of them could pull their weapons and the other man only got one shot out before he dropped dead too. Bond walked into the room and checked behind the couch for anyone else before he knelt down in front of the Quartermaster.

“Q.” Bond's voice was gentle, his fingers nimble as he picked the lock on the handcuffs. “Q, it's me. James. I'm here.”

“James...” Q whispered. He reached out for Bond, letting out a little cry when he moved. Bond immediately gathered the man into his arms, and he felt Q go limp. He felt him shake, and he felt him start to cry, and he just held him.

*

Q woke up slowly, dazed and drugged. The scent of antibacterial cleaners and the brilliantly white walls assaulted his senses, and he closed his eyes again abruptly. All of his limbs felt heavy and useless. It was only as he woke up a little more that he heard the steady beeping of a machine next to him, keeping track of his heart beat, and something warm wrapped around his hand. 

He moved his head to see Bond holding his hand. The agent was dozing in the chair next to Q's bed, and the Quartermaster couldn't help but crack a smile at the sight and hope desperately that he wasn't conjuring the image in his head due to drugs, fear, insanity, or death. Especially the last one. He decidedly didn't like the idea that his heaven was a hospital bed. 

As he watched, Bond woke with a start and looked at Q. “You're awake,” he said softly, his voice gravelly.

“I know.”

“Smartarse,” Bond said under his breath. “How are you feeling?”

“Like hell,” Q answered. “Where are my glasses?”

Bond reached over onto the table that had water and the like on it and grabbed a pair of glasses. “May I?” he asked gently. 

Q smiled and tried to nod, but his head was too heavy. Bond seemed to get the message, though, because he unfolded the glasses and gently placed them on Q. “How’s Q-Branch?”

“R’s taking care of it quite well,” Bond said softly. He stroked the back of Q’s hand with his thumb as he spoke. “They’re the ones who designed your new glasses. Identical to your last ones, but when they are broken a distress signal is sent to Q-Branch unless cancelled by you. Tanner said no to poison, explosives, and rocket launchers.”

Q tried to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit that made his chest sore and his entire body ache. “How long have I been out?” he asked once he settled down and Bond had stopped looking legitimately terrified.

“Three days. They put you into a chemically induced coma to let you sleep through the worst part of the recovery and let you get some rest,” Bond explained. It was obvious that he had been there the whole time, watching over Q for three days.

“They wake me up after three days and no one comes in to check on me? Rude, don’t you think,” Q commented with a smile. 

Bond laughed for a moment. “Tanner probably wanted us to talk.”

“Why in the world would there be something for us to talk about?” Q asked sarcastically.

Bond rolled his eyes and mumbled something about being glad Q was feeling better before he answered. “How about when you get out of here I take you to dinner? Like a real date.” Bond watched Q carefully for his reaction with maybe just a tad of nervousness that Bond would never admit to even if Q could already feel it.

“Sounds good. I’m sure I’ll be plenty ready for real food by then,” Q said with a small smile.

Not long after, a few doctors came in to check on Q and explain all of the surgeries that he had gone through and his recovery process. It was an hour before they left and Tanner entered the room.

“I told you so,” was the first thing out of Tanner’s mouth after the door shut behind him.

“Shut up,” Q countered.

Tanner laughed, but Bond looked to be actually considering something. “Is a mated Double-O going to be an issue?” Bond asked Tanner.

“You’ll have to fill out the paperwork, which I know will thrill you, but no. It hasn’t been a problem up till now and it shouldn’t be in the future,” Tanner explained in a flat voice. “It might even be an advantage. Maybe you’ll bring back your equipment and we can stop wasting money on you. Or you might make it through a mission without doing something exceedingly stupid.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Bond said with a smirk.

Tanner and Q both sighed. Tanner turned to Q. “We figured out who your captures were and I think M might actually apologize for this one,” Tanner said to Q. “The shootings you were investigating were connected.”

“How?” Q asked. He tried to sit up further in the bed, but Bond pressed him back into the bed that was already sitting up.

“Each of the shooters received a deposit in their checking accounts of the same amount; 5,000 U.S. dollars,” Tanner explained. “It was from a front that was linked to one of the bodies that we identified.”

Bond and Tanner both watched Q, who looked positively devastated. “A _hit_. How could I miss a _hit_?” Q berated himself. 

“Contrary to popular belief working for two weeks straight does not produce the best results,” Tanner deadpanned. 

Q scoffed at him, which turned into another coughing fit that made a shot of fear run through Bond. 

“You have one month of mandatory leave, psychologist appointments, and rest before you can get back to work,” Tanner said, ignoring Q’s groan of protest. 

“I’d like to take a month as well,” Bond said as he squeezed hand gently.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. M is about to kill us both at the moment for what I did,” Tanner explained. “Now, get some rest, Q.” Tanner turned and left the room with a nod to both of them.

Q adjusted the bed so that he was laying down again. “James?” he asked tentatively. 

“Yes, Q?” For a brief moment Bond thought Q was going to ask him to leave since he could feel the unease as Q spoke.

“Will you lie down with me?”

A smile spread across Bond’s face as he looked at Q. “Move over,” Bond said as he stood up. He climbed up onto the bed and wrapped his arms around Q as best he could while avoiding his wounds and squeezing onto the small bed with him.

Q settled into his arms and sighed contently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my beta reader [TheExplodingPen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen) for being awesome.
> 
> Wow, it's done. It feels kinda odd to have it all finished...I hope that you like the chapter and the rest of the story. You guys have been super awesome, thanks for reading.


End file.
